The inventions described herein relate to the field of prisoner or parolee tracking and warning systems and methods, and more specifically, to comprehensive prisoner or parolee tracking systems and methods using the Global Positioning System ("GPS") to track the movements of prisoners/parolees and an expert system to continually learn, distinguish and report normal and abnormal or prohibited behavior by prisoners/parolees. Additional prisoner/parolee sensors are used to detect and report substance abuse or other alarming or threatening situations.
The control and/or confinement of prisoners/parolees is a complex and expensive problem. The ever increasing rate of various crimes requires incarceration of thousands of persons every year in the United States. Such detentions are extremely costly, requiring elaborate prison systems with attendant physical facilities and large staffs to monitor prisoner activities and to care for prisoners. Yet many crimes for which people are incarcerated do not necessarily represent a severe threat to society. Examples include selected, non-violent or minor offenses or misdemeanors, such as petty theft, shoplifting, etc. In addition, many prisoners, having served portions of prescribed sentences, could possibly be paroled if effective prisoner/parolee tracking, monitoring, and learning systems and methods were available to enable surveillance and continual detecting and learning of their activities while on parole. By restricting the areas within which parolees may move and the times that they may spend traveling or may spend at specific locations, the possibility of repeat offenses may be minimized. As a result, valuable prison space may be reserved for more serious offenders.
There is an increasing interest in remote confinement monitoring systems and methods for monitoring prisoners or parolees. Such systems typically involve a type of house arrest or house detention. Various methods have been described in issued patents for determining whether or not a prisoner or parolee is at a specified location, such as at his house. Field Monitoring Devices (FMD) are sometimes used to record information concerning prisoner or parolee presence. This information is typically transmitted to a centralized control center. Various forms of electronic monitoring technology and identification tags have been previously described for identifying prisoners or parolees and monitoring their general status or behavior. Voice verification methods have been described or taught for identifying particular prisoners or parolees to insure their presence at specified location. Secured straps and tamper-indicating fastening mechanisms that generate alarms if removal is attempted have been disclosed for attaching tags or other identification mechanisms to prisoners or parolees.
However, none of these prior art house arrest or house incarceration systems and methods are known to enable tracking, monitoring and learning of prisoners or parolees and their respective movement or behavior over extended areas nor do they verify travel routes, lengths of times given at locations, lengths of time traveling, avoidance of prohibited areas, and deviations from normal or expected behavior. Also, prior art systems are not capable of actively learning and adapting to a prisoner's or parolee's permissible behavior patterns and reporting deviations from those permissible patterns to a prisoner/parolee control center. Furthermore, the prior art systems do not utilize expert systems or algorithms (i.e. including but not limited to fuzzy logic, neural networks, reinforcement learning, etc.) in providing the capabilities of learning behavior, movement, or patterns of a prisoner or parolee, or of reinforcing acceptable prisoner or parolee behavior by rewarding the prisoner or parolee for proper activities. In addition, prior art prisoner tracking, monitoring, and learning systems have not fully integrated in combination together the capabilities of modern GPS technology, electronic monitoring for detecting substance abuse, and other sensors to detect unusual or suspicious events in the vicinity of prisoners or parolees being tracked and monitored.
Various house arrest, house incarceration and remote confinement systems and methods including systems with electronic monitoring, restraining mechanism, and tamper free security monitoring devices attached to prisoners or parolees are described in the following documents, each of which is incorporated herein by reference: U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,816,377; 4,918,425; 4,918,432; 4,924,211; 4,943,885; 4,952,913; 4,952,928; 4,980,671; 4,999,613; 5,023,901; 5,032,823; 5,075,670; 5,103,474; 5,117,222; 5,146,207; 5,170,426; 5,182,543; 5,204,670; 5,206,897; 5,218,344; 5,255,306; 5,266,944; 5,298,884; 5,341,126; 5,369,394; 5,448,221; 5,455,851; 5,461,390; and 5,471,197.
In addition many patents have been issued for various applications of GPS for locating and tracking objects and for navigation purpose. Various configurations of GPS-based tracking and communication systems and methods are described in the following documents, each of which is incorporated herein by reference: The Navstar Global Positioning System by Tom Logsdon, Van Nostrand and Reinhold, New York (1992), ISBN 0-422-01040-0; GPS Satellite Surveying by Alfred Leick, John Wiley & Sons, New York (1990), ISBN 0-471-81990-05; GPS--A Guide to the Next Utility by Jeff Hurn, Trimble Navigation, Ltd., Sunnyvale, Calif. (1989); Differential GPS Explained by Jeff Hurn, Trimble Navigation Ltd., Sunnyvale, Calif. (1993); and U.S. Pat. Nos.: 5,182,566; 5,187,805; 5,202,829; 5,223,844; 5,225,842; 5,323,322; 5,243,652; 5,345,244; 5,359,332; 5,379,244; 5,382,958; 5,389,934; 5,390,125; 5,396,540; 5,408,238; 5,414,432; 5,418,537; 5,422,813; 5,422,816; 5,430,656; and 5,434,787.
Furthermore, expert systems (i.e. including but not limited to fuzzy logic, neural networks, reinforcement learning, etc.) are well known to those of ordinary skill in the art, as reflected in the following publications, each of which is incorporated by reference herein: Harmon, Paul and King, David, Artificial Intelligence in Business--Expert Systems, John Wiley & Sons, New York (1985), ISBN 0-471-81554-3; Gottinger, H. and Weimann, H., Artificial Intelligence--a tool for industry and management, Ellis Horwood, New York (1990), ISBN 0-13-048372-9; Mirzai, A. R., Artificial Intelligence--Concepts and applications in engineering, Chapman and Hall, New York (1990), ISBN 0-412-37900-7; Bourbakis, N., Artificial Intelligence Methods and Applications, World Scientific, New Jersey (1992), ISBN 981-02-1057-4; Schalkoff, R., Artificial Intelligence: An Engineering Approach, McGraw-Hill, New York (1990), ISBN 0-07-055084-0; Frenzel Jr., L., Crash Course in Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems, Howard W. Sams & Co., Indianapolis, Ind. (1987), ISBN 0-672-22443-7. However, expert systems, fuzzy logic, neural networks, reinforcement learning, etc. do not appear to have been used or applied in the prisoner behavior tracking, monitoring, and learning areas.
Various techniques have also been disclosed and implemented for monitoring vital signs of persons, including breath analyzers, sweat analyzers, and heart rate monitors. However, a totally integrated prisoner/parolee monitoring and tracking system and method that makes optimum use of location, travel, and GPS tracking, physical monitoring, security system technology, and expert systems and methods is not disclosed in the prior art.